“I know how difficult it is going to be because I have seen other players struggle with life after football. This has been my life for almost as long as I can remember. I can’t get my head around what it will be like not to be training, to have matches, to have ambitions in the game. But it has to stop at some point: I have to accept that.”
These were the words of David Beckham in his suite at Le Bristol hotel in Paris, just a few days before he announced his retirement from the game. I was in the French capital to interview the midfielder and was struck by his civility, and just how often he offered to fetch me Diet Cokes.